Just a Few of Those Faces and Places
by UnstableIntention
Summary: Behind the scenes of 'These Faces and These Places'


Stiles knew he was a wolf, from the first moment he laid eyes on him.

It wasn't overt, nothing obvious, nothing that any _normal _person would see.

But then again Stiles wasn't, not anymore.

Not after spending years fighting his way up out of the hell pits of the supernatural, not after _dying_. Sacrificing himself to that damned stump of a blood-hungry Nemeton out in the center of the woods. Sacrificing himself to save his father, his friends, his town.

It was almost funny to him now, that he would give up so much and then leave it all behind, like those reasons were nothing, didn't matter at all.

Funnier still, that he could run so far and still not get away.

He didn't know what it was at first. Didn't know if he was just more attuned to it or if there actually were subtle signs he was picking up on because he knew what to look for. In the end he thought it might be both, but more importantly, in the end it didn't matter. He knew, and he could see it, in the way that the man carried himself and in the way that he sometimes scented the air.

Worse, so much worse, in the way that the desperate, yearning thing inside him pulled him towards his presence, demanded that he go to him, learn him, _know_ him. His heart, his warmth, the spark that Deaton had named and then never spoken of again tugged him towards the werewolf, _wanted_, and that alone was enough to make his brain hit the panic button.

_Run_.

Get the hell outta Dodge because you're about to get hurt again.

And he knew down to his very soul that he couldn't take another hit like the one that had sent him running from Beacon Hills.

Those wounds were still open and hot and bloody, infecting all the parts of him that had once made him capable of really being happy. He hadn't understood the changes in him, the growing sense of co-dependence, near clinginess that had never before been a part of his make-up. He felt almost like he'd been losing himself his senior year, his ties to the pack and its wolves becoming so knotted and tangled that he couldn't even follow them anymore, and then in one fell swoop every one of those strings had been cut.

He'd barely survived that; gone out to the Preserve and gotten more blitzed than he'd ever been, three-quarters of the way to alcohol poisoning before he stuck his fingers down his throat and rid his body of the whiskey he'd guzzled, gathered up the last shreds of dignity that he could summon and stumbled home. To this day he didn't know how he'd managed to sober up enough to tell his dad the whole sordid tale, to come up with a plan and get himself on a plane before any of the pack could come sniffing around with an excuse or a pathetic platitude.

He was just glad he had.

Getting out, getting away, was maybe the best thing that he could've done in that moment.

The only way he could have saved himself.

The plane ride itself hadn't been quite enough of course. Staying with relatives for maybe two weeks, he'd begun to drive himself mad, his mind turning things over and over again until he was physically sick. He'd gotten away from Beacon Hills, but he'd still needed to get away from himself, and that was exactly what he did. Already accepted into his mother's alma mater, he got permission to delay his admission for a year, to spend that time compiling research and data for the dissertation he already had planned. He'd worked long and hard to fix that, by warrant of extensive proposals and writing samples, labeled as a year of study abroad that quickly turned to two, and then faded away all together.

Call it getting lost after a year backpacking across Europe if you wanted to, but he was working, dammit, and working hard, to do more than just forget all the things he'd left behind.

Avoiding the tourist traps, he found the smallest villages and the most obscure tours, collecting as many tales of the supernatural as he could; myths, legends, local lore, he documented it all. Incredible, the things he learned, the stories he was told. It took him cross the country to the most beautiful of places, and that was of course how he'd ended up here, on the first leg of trek that already had him and three others deep in a Romanian mountain range. Their guide had taken them on a wide swing to meet up with another tour group coming in from the other side, their own leader injured with a badly sprained ankle, and there he was, packing happily along with the others like his appearance wasn't turning Stiles' whole world on its ear.

He was huge - Stiles remembered that being his first impression after _WEREWOLF_ flashed through his mind in hot neon letters. Taller than him by a good head and a half, broad, heavy shoulders, and a thick neck, he was built more like a bull than anything else. That or a brick wall. His next impression, which he would deny till his dying day, was that the guy was rather beautiful. Not handsome, not hot, not even gorgeous.

Beautiful.

And yes, part of it was the strangle-hold of _gimme_ that had bubbled up in his chest at the sight of him, the recognition of the pelt beneath his skin and the woods behind his eyes, but the other part of it was the eyes themselves, shining not with a werewolf's supernatural glow but rather a warmth of character and cheerfulness of spirit that Stiles didn't even know it was possible for a wolf to possess. There was just something about the gentleness of him where there was so much strength in the lines of his body, the angle of his jaw and the slope of his shoulders, that it had been almost painful for Stiles to not just cave to his very first instinct and launch himself at the man, to beg a perfect stranger for a good-ole-fashioned cuddle.

He disgusted himself sometimes.

Part of this, a huge part of it, had been about finding himself again, finding the independence and resourcefulness he'd felt like he'd lost. He was here to _prove_ that he could do it, could be his own rock. That he wasn't a liability that a wolf had to worry about or care for. And still he felt that thing in his chest, a hook in his belly tugging at him, incessant and demanding, and it only made him that much more determined to stay away from the guy.

The werewolf didn't get the memo.

Stiles was sitting on a boulder at the edge of the group's little campground when the wolf first approached him, carving on a piece of wood with the pocket knife his father had pressed into his hand before he'd left. It had been two days since they'd picked up the other hikers and he'd been doing his best to avoid the big blonde, despite the smiles the man cast in his direction every time Stiles looked his way, friendly overtures that he was determined to ignore. Focused on the small block of pine in his hands, irritated that the shape beginning to emerge from it looked depressingly like a wolf instead of the pack llama it was meant to be, he started so badly at the appearance of a pair of worn black hiking boots in front of him that he jumped, the knife slipping and nicking his knuckles.

Hissing at the shallow bolt of pain, he brought his hand to his mouth, sucking away the blood and soothing the cut he'd caused as he glared up at the man towering above him.

"What?" he snarled around his injured knuckles, but the wolf was looking down on him with enough concern that it sent an immediate swoop of guilt through his belly.

"You all right?" he asked, his gaze caught on Stiles' mouth until he quickly dropped his hand. "Didn't mean to…"

"You didn't," he interrupted, his tone still gruff and uninviting. "It's fine."

His heartbeat must've stayed steady, or otherwise the guy was just willing to let the lie go, because he was shaking his head in a way that conveyed a shrug. He had thick, sunny-blonde hair and it tousled gently as he moved and Stiles was struck with the sudden desire to bury his fingers in it and hold on forever, so instead he just tightened them around the whittling in his hand.

" 'M Pheelan O'Rourke," the wolf said, and then he was reaching out a hand and just waiting, letting it hang in front of Stiles' face like a challenge.

And to hell with backing down from that - he wasn't going to be intimidated by any alpha-beta-dick.

Ok, so maybe he was being defensive and maybe that was making _him_ the dick. There were definitely a few quotes about racisms and profiling tripping through his brain just then, even if it was really specieism...

Somewhat chastened by his own attitude but still unwilling to encourage any kind of a relationship, Stiles accepted the handshake, warm and firm and confidant but not overbearing. The wolf was looking at him expectantly with such an open face that he was momentarily taken aback, and then he realized that he was waiting for his own introduction. Reluctant as he was to give his name, everyone in his group already had it so a lie would just make him look like a total jackass.

"Stiles."

**XXX**

He should have known it wouldn't end there.

The climb they were on was set to last at least two weeks, and there was no way Stiles could avoid the man in a group of nine, isolated from the entirety of the civilized world. The guy was happy-go-lucky like Stiles had never seen, and it seemed like every time he turned around the werewolf was there with a grin or a laugh, loud and warm and booming in the clean mountain air. There was something more to it than that, he knew, knew that _Pheelan _was aware that Stiles knew what he was, and that he knew that Stiles was something in turn.

But since Stiles didn't exactly know what he was then what the other man knew had to be just as much a guess in its own right.

And that… that was a lot of _knows_ and _knews_ and it kind of made Stiles' head hurt.

But the wolf didn't seem surprised that Stiles had recognized his… _species_, and so he _had _to assume that Stiles was something too.

But he never asked, and that might've been what irritated Stiles the most.

He was just so damned _nice_, without wanting anything out of it, and maybe that said more about Stiles than it did about him, but dammit he couldn't help it. Every time he turned around the guy was there, lending a hand with something, spouting off some colorful bit of small talk, bumping Stiles' shoulder chummily like they were friends sharing a good joke, and it all grated on him like sand on sensitive skin. He wanted it, wanted it all badly, and yet he didn't want any of it at all, and spending half of his time pushing the guy away while the thing in his chest slobbered after him like a hound after a bone was excruciatingly exhausting.

Eight days, he endured eight full days of that before he couldn't take it anymore. Before something had to give and he broke.

"Why are you all over me?" he snarled, showing his teeth when the wolf had followed him into the edges of the trees when he'd volunteered to collect tinder for the night's bonfire.

"I don't really know," he replied easily with a sunny grin, his head cocked to one side as he watched Stiles collect sticks and bits of dry grass, making no effort to do more than watch. Stiles even caught his gaze wandering over his backside when he bent to grab a chunk of tree bark. "You're hot."

Jerking upright, Stiles spun around so hard that he almost dropped his armful of fire-making materials.

"Wait… what?!" he yipped in disbelief.

He certainly hadn't been expecting that.

It was the first time in his life that anyone had flat-out expressed a blatant interest in him, and this guy was gorgeous.

Yeah, yeah, so he'd noticed, so what?

"You're hot," the wolf repeated, and this time the look on his face somehow softened the sentiment so that it wasn't just a crass appreciation of nothing more than his physical looks. "You're smart. You've got wicked humor," he continued. "There's just… something about you. Can't put my finger on it, but it's there."

Stiles frowned, turned away to pick up one last stick.

"I'm nothing special," he muttered bitterly, feeling the reality of those words all the way down to his core. He was a lot of things, sure, but he just…

He wasn't special.

"You're definitely something," the wolf murmured behind him, and when Stiles turned back his eyes were glowing a warm, burnished gold, the safest color he could have hoped for them to be. "I wouldn't be surprised if special was exactly what you are."

This time Stiles scowled, turned harshly away and began marching back towards camp.

"Forget it dude," he bit out over his shoulder, the hair on the back of his neck standing up and everything in him screaming _go back_. "Just stay away from me."


End file.
